World View & Market Commentary. Forest first; Trees second. Focused on Real & Knowable facts that filter through the "experts" fluff and media hyperbole. Where we've been, what the future may hold and developing a better way forward.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Equity futures seem to be able to rise in the overnight no volume environment, but whenever the volume picks up it is selling volume, like just prior to the close the past few days. The ECB raised rates by .25% (to 1.25%), and the Euro is lower, the dollar is higher, bonds are lower and approaching long term support, oil is higher, gold and silver are flat, while corn sets another record.

The move by the ECB to raise rates is interesting to say the least… Of course most European countries are saturated with debt and this will make everyone’s debt carrying costs rise. The ECB along with their fellow criminals in the IMF and World Bank are pumping debt saturated countries with more debt at the same time they are now raising interest rates. Anyone see the dilemma here? Oh yeah, it’ll all be okay, no problem. And just as a reminder, our criminal “Fed” has been feeding the Europeans money from nothing while they indebt our citizens.

What the ECB sees is commodities going through the roof and they want to cool that down – but again, the real economy sucks and so they continue to pump liquidity while raising interest rates? You can’t have it both ways, sorry – and that will be painfully obvious later in hindsight.

So, while they raise rates, they are having to “bail out” Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and all the rest one right after another from their great debt money system. What that amounts to is yet another money grab by the central banks, no surprise there as their money grubbing never stops.

By the way, raising interest rates should make one’s currency stronger versus those that don’t – the opposite occurred on this announcement, was it priced in? Watch that relationship, and watch the reaction in bonds.

Weekly Jobless claims moved slightly lower, falling from last week’s 388,000 to 382,000 (of course last week was revised up to 392,000). Here’s Econoshill:

Highlights
Jobless filings are moving lower one step at a time with initial claims at 382,000 in the April 2 week vs 392,000 in the prior week (revised from 388,000). The four-week average of 389,500 is down more than 5,000 from a month ago. Continuing claims edged lower in the March 26 week, to a four-week average of 3.746 million with the month-ago comparison showing a 100,000 decline. Unadjusted data show 8.52 million making a filing during the March 19 week, down nearly 250,000 from the prior week.

Claims trends point to labor demand as businesses gear up to meet orders. A wildcard for future reports is Japanese supply disruptions and whether they will affect US jobs. Markets are showing little reaction to today's report.

Meanwhile, the media continues to ignore the importance of the Japanese Fukushima situation. We are following and covering this situation thoroughly in our daily thread, so if you wish to know what’s going on there, please join the conversation there, where we have been miles ahead of the mainstream (which are nothing but a marketing/ shill arm for their corporate owners). The Japanese government has been hiding very elevated readings outside of their evacuation zone and it now looks like they are finally getting around to discussing moving it out further. Yet another crime against humanity that is going unchecked – those people’s health will suffer hugely, and their land will not be inhabitable for decades or even centuries.

“Clearly we’re witnessing one of the greatest disasters in modern time.”

Gee, is that the way that our media is covering this story? Perhaps it’s not that difficult to understand the disconnect once you know that General Electric, the maker of the majority of those plants, also owns or controls a large swath of the media here in the United States.

What Arnie Gunderson is discussing is simply the result of another corporation capturing government. TEPCO should have been removed from this situation a long time ago.

Want to see another blatant attempt of despots trying to hold onto their power?

April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Advisers to Saudi Arabia’s king approved a long-delayed overhaul of the country’s mortgage law after the monarch pledged more than $82 billion to fund homebuilding, at a time governments across the Middle East are offering concessions to quell political unrest.

The Shura Council agreed on its final amendments to the law and passed it to King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz for final approval, according to Saad Mariq, deputy chairman of the council’s finance committee.

“The law will propel the creation of private mortgage- finance companies and banks will infuse a lot of money into mortgages,” Mariq said in a telephone interview on April 5. “I expect to see the injection of tens of billions of riyals into the sector as a result.”

King Abdullah promised to increase spending on housing after popular protests led to the overthrow of governments in Egypt and Tunisia and targeted regimes from Syria to Bahrain. Saudi Arabia’s mortgage law will change the way home finance is regulated, from registering mortgages to prosecuting police officers who refuse to carry out eviction orders. The law, debated for a 10 years, will give rise to a private lending market that Capitas Group International estimates at $32 billion a year for the next decade.

Pretty easy to see from the outside looking in that it’s a blatant attempt to bribe the people into peace so that they are compliant.

But instead of just giving it away, they are creating banks that will indebt the people. Someone is going to make a ton of money, an artificial bubble will be created, and most will wind up being slaves to maintain their artificial and nonproductive lifestyles.

Now think about that and what has happened in the U.S.. Is it any different? Can you see it for what it is from the inside? Or are you too busy working or being entertained to understand the dynamic? Or, are you being distracted with arguments about debt ceiling limits and fear mongering regarding the shutdown of government?

All of that is political theatre, the math is so far gone that it is laughable and not a single person in Congress is on target or operating in reality – they are all operating inside of the central banker debt money box. Inside that box the math is impossible, the choices are limited to cut spending or raise taxes – of course no one can touch the interest expense that wouldn’t be there if money were produced by the people and for the people.